November 21, 2011

Today's Subject Is Bullshit

It is an important subject because it is the material of which contemporary society is built.

The world today is swimming in bullshit. It is drowning in bullshit. It is submerged, inundated, and deluged with bullshit.

This is a serious issue. The most harmful force in business, politics, and education is bullshit.

The good news for us in the advertising and marketing industries is that we are no longer the primary purveyors of bullshit. We used to be. And we have done such a lovely job at popularizing it, that others have copied and even surpassed us. Today, the great generators of bullshit are media and government.

Bullshit is so prevalent today that when a public figure says something that is not bullshit we are startled.

The reason for today's post about "bullshit" is that this week the Super Committee of Congress is supposed to issue its plan for fiscal reform. What is a Super Committee, you ask? Simple. It's a committee, plus bullshit.

You see, when you want to pretend you're doing something super special, when you're actually doing nothing at all, just add bullshit.

If you don't understand what all the fiscal fuss is about, here it is in simple terms. Our government used to collect 18% of GDP in taxes and spend 20%. This was not good as it left us in deeper debt every year. But recently it's gotten much worse. Now we collect 16% of GDP in taxes and spend 25%. This means that pretty soon we'll be in the same crapper that Greece is in.

Anyone with a brain can see we need to collect more money and spend less. Duh. But we no longer have people with brains. We have replaced them with Super Committees.

When this Super Committee accomplishes Super Nothing, I have an idea. Our "leaders" can appoint a Super-Duper Committee to accomplish Super-Duper Nothing.

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Creative people make the ads. Everyone else makes the arrangements."

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business is about sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."